Oil prices resumed their climb on Tuesday ahead of the American Petroleum Institute inventory report later in the day, with both crude oil benchmarks regaining some of the lost ground from earlier in the week.
By 1:39 p.m. ET, WTI had reclaimed a price above $95 per barrel, gaining 2.15% on the day to reach $95.91 per barrel. Brent crude rose $2 per gallon (+2%) to $102.00 per barrel.
Both benchmarks were trading down earlier in the week on disappointing data from China that suggested the demand for crude was easing. But on Tuesday, as the OPEC JTCC reduced its outlook for a market surplus for this year and Speaker Nancy Pelosi safely landed in Taiwan despite China's posturing and speculation.
The price of WTI is now even with a week ago, with Brent crude still down $3 per barrel on the week.
Earlier on Tuesday, OPEC's Joint Technical Committee estimated that this year's global oil market surplus would be 800,000 bpd-a downward revision of 200,000 bpd from last month's estimate. Hours later, U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi made her way to Taiwan without incident.
Later on Tuesday, the American Petroleum Institute will report its estimate of crude oil and oil products inventories. Analysts are projecting that crude oil stocks fell 467,000 barrels last week, despite millions of barrels leaving the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserves during the week.
The full OPEC+ group, including Russia, is set to meet on Wednesday to determine the group's production strategy for September. The group has officially rolled back the full amount of the targets as of August, although the group has so far seriously undershot its production targets by millions of barrels a day.
By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com
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Julianne Geiger is a veteran editor, writer and researcher for Oilprice.com, and a member of the Creative Professionals Networking Group. More
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